Automotive suppliers have good news and bad news. The good news is that last year they billed 37,668 million euros, 17.4% more than in the previous year and a figure unknown to date. The bad news is that this increase is not due to increased activity, but rather to inflation, and that cost increases have left margins “tremendously constrained”, as explained today by José Portilla, general director of the association that brings together these companies, Sernauto, at a meeting in Madrid to present the annual report.
This situation, acknowledges Sernauto, forces suppliers to negotiate with car manufacturers in order to pass on cost increases to them. “We are going to have a continuous fighting relationship with the manufacturers. We have always had it and we must defend the margins,” said the president of the association, Francisco J. Riberas.
For Spanish suppliers, some of them multinationals such as Gestamp, Antolin or Cie with 460 factories throughout the world, inflation and interest rate rises are the tonic this year, in which the automotive sector can finally concentrate its efforts in the technological and environmental transition. 2020 was marked by the pandemic, 2021 by the chip crisis, 2022 by the invasion of Ukraine, and 2023 by a new inflation and money price scenario.
“It is dizzying to invest in the current environment”, in which the cost of debt increases, but so do the market demands to speed up the transition to electric cars, Riberas stated. Exports from Spanish automotive suppliers reached 22,669 million euros last year and were equivalent to 60% of their turnover, in an international industry that still has not reached production levels prior to the pandemic and is undergoing continuous remodeling.
Riberas warned that “the European Union is going slowly in the relocation of its production, compared to the United States, which is giving large subsidies to its industry.” Meanwhile, China “is increasingly competitive” in the electric car and is beginning to attack the European markets.
Sernauto calls on the Government to carry out “as soon as possible” the second call for the Automotive Perte. He also hopes that registrations will recover despite the rise in interest rates. “We believe that interest rate rises should translate into falls in registrations, but there is enough retained demand and we expect the effect to be less,” Riberas said.
Automotive suppliers employ almost 350,000 people, between direct and indirect positions. Reports show that the transition to electric cars will destroy tens of thousands of jobs in Spain, but Sernauto is confident of reducing the number through innovation and the country’s positioning in areas such as batteries.
